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On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Alabama state officials in a federal district court on behalf of three transgender individuals. The plaintiffs all suffer from gender dysphoria: Darcy Corbitt and Destiny Clark are men but want to obtain Alabama driver’s licenses that will describe them as female; John Doe is female but seeks to change her driver’s license to one identifying her as male.
In their lawsuit, Corbitt v. Taylor, the plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of Alabama’s Driver License Policy Order No 63. It provides “that an individual wishing to have the sex changed on their Alabama driver license due to gender reassignment surgery are required to submit to an Examining office or the Medical Unit,” either an “amended state certified birth certificate” or “a letter from the physician that performed the reassignment procedure.”

None of the plaintiffs have had “gender reassignment surgery,” although Clark had something described as “gender-confirming surgery.” Yet the ACLU’s maintains Alabama must issue the plaintiffs driver’s licenses based on their beliefs that they are actually the opposite sex.

Requiring gender reassignment surgery to obtain a description of them as the opposite sex on their drivers’ licenses, the ACLU argues, violates transgender individuals’ due process rights by forcing them to disclose sensitive information and pressuring them to undergo certain kinds of body-alteration surgery to secure the driver’s license statement they want. The ACLU also alleges that because Policy Order 63 targets solely transgender people, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.